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Hey guys nice to meet y'all

I guess since it's my first post I will introduce. I am a 26 year old Pianist Flutist Composer and work as a piano teacher... love Ragtime music, Jazz -Funk, Classic Rock, 80s music and stuff.
I teach at 2 places a conservatory and a community center. However sadly yesterday it was announced that due to the Corona outbreak everything is shutting down until further notice.
My main workplace at the community center is very likely to arrange Zoom (that's an app like Skype apparently, no experience with it, downloading as I write this) virtual lessons with my students
I am keen with computers so I don't sweat about it. I will be notified by the staff as all the administrative stuff is being arranged.
In the meantime anyway here's the thing, I never done remote lessons before... given the situation it's better than nothing ofc.
Any advice at all regarding anything or stuff I should take into consideration or suggestion? technical? additional work tools? something to look for from your experience when doing online?


I do have a Logitech 720p (HQ but not true HD sadly) web camera and a microphone. Also, I have all my music sheet in PDFs on my PC, like a huge stack that I keep updating and making hard copies, I can appreciate now that I have everything backed up and categorized virtually in this difficult time.


Much obliged...

https://mirandawilsoncellist.com/2020/03/13/remote-music-lessons-for-the-low-tech-teacher/

Useful info.

Thanks Seeker that was a good read!
I wonder, is it possible to activate Zoom on my PC, and in addition to the webcam from my PC use my phone to have 2 video sources... ideally my phone will be placed above the piano on the stand
the webcam will show my face. and lastly, shared screen will show either the PDF sheet, Notation/other stuff I 'd demonstrate on my PC. I will be definitely using my Yamaha keyboard which has onboard audio interface
and might connect a mic, not sure yet. However not sure how to get the video from the phone into the Zoom window and be able to drag / arrange the location of all visuals on the screen (my face webcam, phone>piano and shared screen all together)

Thanks for ANY help, much apprecaited!!

Hugh Sung, who has been teaching online piano courses for years, just posted a video to help teachers create an online setup, and he shows how to use Zoom step by step. He talks about 3 levels of setup, from simple if you just need to have a solution for the next few months, up to a very advanced setup if you decided you love online teaching

I am in the same situation at our music school, unfortunately i am not as tech savy as Chummy. Thanks for the video Chrispy!

Christy, thanks for this link. Just got off FaceTime with my teacher Geísa Dutra and we are exploring Zoom for lessons for the nonce. However long the nonce turns out to be...

A few things I've learned this week:

1. The small piece of wood to the left of the keyboard is a good place to set the student's phone so you can watch their hands while they play.
2. With very young students, having a parent in the room with them can be helpful.
3. This format works great for some students and not so great for others. I've been surprised that some kids actually focused more on the lesson than usual, while others had a hard time understanding anything.

Ah. The only one student I am having remote lesson with is clearly the latter....
She is very young and was not focusing. She somehow tends to look away from the camera. Which could be because they are using an iphone which is placed on the edge on the piano.

It's also harder to see the student's fingering and often I had to get the parent to hold the camera on top of the student's hand

Recently I ran across some blogger who always wore sunglasses, even indoors. He was explaining why - he had to look around at other things, which made him look shifty-eyed, but with the sunglasses you couldn't see that. The camera feels like your eyes, and where your face would be - but the camera is not your face, and a newscaster has to learn to look at the camera. It is not natural.

In my own setup, my camera is to my left at a distance, but I have one monitor on the piano. If I'm looking at my teacher's face that I can see, I am looking away from the camera. If I look into the camera, I'm totally ignoring his face.

I taught some students yesterday for the first time online and it went pretty well except I downloaded Zoom and had a problem with getting a toll free number connecting choice. These are local people so was hoping to see local area codes but I can't figure out how that works if anyone has advice. I want no possibility of toll charges. I had a bad experience with Verison in the old days of dailup that cost me money. We wound up using Messenger which was clear for one home but weaker for another. But better that nothing with this situation we're in and it was nice to see students again.

I did a double-take on this one - don't use the word 'nonce' if you ever visit the UK

Did you warn Shakespeare, too? I go with the much, much older and more widely used meaning of the word: “for the present; temporarily.”

Language has changed a little since Shakespeare's time, at least in England. Just a polite heads-up, take it or leave it.

I looked up the slang meaning of "nonce"
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nonce
Is it used that way in other places, or just in Britain? How about when a Brit asks if you might have a fag, or poor David Niven embarrassed himself unwittingly on a boat to America by telling an alarmed lady that he would "knock her up" in the morning? (fag = cigarette, or homosexual depending on country: knock someone up means to knock on the door to wake them, or make them be with child).

usage? Here's "The Nonce" performing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyuHuEg8auA

More usage - article, "Pick a nonce and try a hash" - this one is about Bitcoin, and "hash" does not mean marijuana.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n08/donald-mackenzie/pick-a-nonce-and-try-a-hash

used in cryptography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_nonce

discussion on the issue (the British slang word has totally different origins)
https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2015/12/story-wordpress-s-nonces

Finally, if Querty53 quotes Salish Sea as a place, he may be Canadian. We may spell some words like the Brits (labour) but we don't always have their usage. Here is a recent Canadian official document

FOR THE NONCE: POLICING AND ABORIGINAL OCCUPATIONS AND PROTESTS*
Here the meaning of "one time occurrence" is meant, and has nothing to do with paedophiles (hey, I have used our joint Cda/Br spelling, just to confuse the "Americans" )

https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov..._and_Aboriginal_Occupations_May_2006.pdf

(don't get a linguist involved in language discussions ) I found it interesting though. Didn't know the British meaning.

I think 'fag' is probably so well known for its dual meaning that it doesn't trip anyone up anymore (although it's not what I would call a cigarette anyway, that would be a 'tab').

Another one that popped up whilst I was in America (my wife is American) was 'bender' - slang for a homosexual in the UK. None of the Americans I was with when this came up in conversation had heard of this usage. I subsequently found out there was a band - The Morning Benders - who changed their name after a tour of the UK!

All these words and phrases seem to be....of a theme. I'm sure there are plenty of words where both UK and N. Amer. meanings are safe for children, e.g. bonnet.

Exactly.
Even more OT though it does to go to our previous OT topic of mixed meaning. Is your avatar meant to be an F, an A, or ambiguous?

Back to the topic at hand: I had a good online lesson with Zoom this afternoon.

I'm getting the hang of it too. I like that parents are coming in to help younger kids occasionally. It's nice to see their involvement.

I too just started teaching with zoom. I'm concerned about gmail being open while I'm teaching on zoom. Does it have to be on the whole time when teaching with zoom?

I'm also wondering about the etiquette. Is it okay to comment on their pet if he walks in the room? Do you say hi if the other parent walks in the background?

I feel I have to be less critical during an online lesson. I commented on the bench height and maybe they felt bad with me criticizing their stuff.

One of the unintended consequences of online teaching is that we get to see the lousy piano/bench/lighting/room set-ups of our students. Bite your lip, or try not to gawk.